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The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors affecting the relative variability in farm and off‐farm income for Canadian farm operators.

Variability of farm and off‐farm income is analyzed using a dataset of 17,000 farm operators from 2001 to 2006. Relative ranking of the coefficients of variation (CV) for farm and off‐farm income are compared across farm types and are regressed against factors conditioning the variations.

Greater reliance on farm income results in lower (greater) relative variability in farm (off‐farm) income. Larger commercial operations experience larger farm income volatility because they are less risk averse or they can manage more risk. Diversification and off‐farm employment appear to be risk management strategies for commercial operations.

Government payments have a small, positive effect on farm and off‐farm income variability, indicating this support leads farmers to take on more risky activities and/or reduce the use of self‐insurance activities. Results could also be due to the lag between the time of the income reduction and the time in which the aid is received. Further research is necessary to decipher the effects of government support on farm decisions.

The results on relative variation in the farm and off‐farm income across farm type raises questions about whether government programs should target specific operations.

While income variation remains a focus of public policy, factors affecting its variability are not well‐understood. Studies have examined the level of farm income and the decision to participate in off‐farm employment but none has examined the variance in both income sources.

In-work transfers are often seen as a good trade-off between redistribution and efficiency as they alleviate poverty among low-wage households, while increasing financial incentives to work. In the context of the recent economic downturn, they have been advocated to offset the disincentive effect of wage cuts and to cushion the negative redistributive impact of earnings losses and cuts in the minimum wage. We study this double effect for Ireland, a country deeply affected by the economic crisis, and for which existing in-work support policies are of limited scope. The employment and poverty effects of alternative policies are analysed thanks to counterfactual simulations built using a micro-simulation model, the Living in Ireland Survey 2001 and labour supply estimations. We focus on an extension of the existing scheme, the Family Income Supplement and its replacement by the refundable tax credit in force in the United Kingdom.

I find that median wealth plummeted over the years 2007–2010, and by 2010 was at its lowest level since 1969. The inequality of net worth, after almost two decades of little movement, was up sharply from 2007 to 2010. Relative indebtedness continued to expand from 2007 to 2010, particularly for the middle class, though the proximate causes were declining net worth and income rather than an increase in absolute indebtedness. In fact, the average debt of the middle class actually fell in real terms by 25 percent. The sharp fall in median wealth and the rise in inequality in the late 2000s are traceable to the high leverage of middle-class families in 2007 and the high share of homes in their portfolio. The racial and ethnic disparity in wealth holdings, after remaining more or less stable from 1983 to 2007, widened considerably between 2007 and 2010. Hispanics, in particular, got hammered by the Great Recession in terms of net worth and net equity in their homes. Households under age 45 also got pummeled by the Great Recession, as their relative and absolute wealth declined sharply from 2007 to 2010.

Throughout Macedonia, beekeeping is becoming popular regardless of ethnicity. Studying ethnicity, the purpose of this paper is to determine what beekeepers in Macedonia thought in their own words about their beekeeping entrepreneurship. The objective is to identify whether motivations of ethnic Albanian beekeepers in Macedonia were the same or different compared to those of ethnic Macedonians in the same country, and if different, how.

To accomplish this objective, in-depth interviews were conducted with 40 beekeepers in Macedonia. A total of 29 interviews were conducted face-to-face and the other 11 by phone. The first set of interviews took place between December 2016 and February 2017, followed by more interviews in June 2017. In total, 27 respondents said they were ethnic Albanians, and 13 identified themselves as ethnic Macedonians. Also, ten respondents were women. While eight were full-time beekeepers, 32 were part-time beekeepers.

The results indicated that beekeeping businesses play a significant role in the transition economy of Macedonia. Beekeeping provides additional earnings that support rural families and keeps them financially stable. The majority of both Albanians and Macedonians understood that beekeeping on a part-time job basis provided a needed supplement to their income. Some part-time beekeepers are also working as auto-mechanics, locksmiths, medical doctors, restaurant/cafeteria owners, and tailors. A few in the sample were retired from their jobs or full-time beekeepers. An important difference between ethnic Albanian beekeepers and ethnic Macedonians in Macedonia is that the majority of ethnic Albanian participants see beekeeping as following in “my father’s footsteps”, while most Macedonians were motivated by the perceived opportunity of having a good business.

Limitations of the research are twofold. First, financial data of family beekeeping are not available, which would be useful in determining the contribution made to economic development. It is common, especially in transition economies such as the western Balkans, that financial results are very sensitive to their owners. Second, unavailable databases for beekeepers make any quantitative approach difficult, if not impossible, resulting in most research using the qualitative research approach.

This paper is one of the first to treat beekeeping as a form of artisan entrepreneurship, which also contributes to the understanding of family business. As in other countries, the important and operation of the family business among family members in Macedonia is passed from generation to generation. The results of this research revealed the value of networking, which was found to be very important to income. For beekeepers to develop, grow, and be branded in the community, networking is an important ingredient.

This study identifies key strategies employed by Illinois grain farms to prevent the erosion of their equity positions due to significant downturns in commodity prices during the implementation of the 1996 farm bill. The econometric results emphasize the collective importance of revenue enhancement, cost reduction, and capital management strategies. Nonfarm‐related strategies aimed at minimizing equity withdrawals through regulated family living expenditures, as well as supplementing low farm incomes with receipts from nonfarm employment and investments, significantly affect cost value equity growth rates. Moreover, significant financial and asset management strategies include those that minimize the costs of borrowing and maintain high asset productivity levels through elimination of excess farm capacity.

This chapter uses the Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS) 7 datasets to investigate and examine the effect of rural non-farm diversification and its implications on agricultural (tree-crop) farming sector inequalities and sustainable development in Ghana. Applying a Gini-decomposition method and/or technique within a quantitative approach, the study outcome indicates the average non-farm income thus, increased income inequality among tree-crop smallholder rural livelihoods and households. Income diversification by farm households has gained the attention of governments, policy makers, and researchers because of its commonness and contribution to socio-economic development especially in developing countries. Aggregationally, non-farm self-employment reduced income inequality, and non-farm wage employment income led to an increase in income inequality. Increased rate of educational enrollment and achievement is the most important variable of non-farm income inequality. Government effort at expanding tree-crop acreages and improve yields have to degree achieved its intended policy implementation, increased rate of educational achievement could undermine the socio-economic policy cohesion and sustainable development of rural livelihood, communities, and national economy. Tree crop policies should take account of the spatial distribution of tree-crop commodity production and in particular, the implication and effect of rural non-farm diversification on agricultural sector inequalities.

The direct selling industry is experiencing phenomenal growth in Malaysia. The Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism Ministry projects that there will be a 20 percent increase in volume of direct sales growth to RM5.5 billion in 2010, RM6.2 billion in 2011 and RM7 billion in 2012. The Direct Selling Act 1993 has been reinforced to accord protection to potential consumers. With the real wages in Malaysia decreasing and increasing unemployment especially among fresh graduates there may be a greater incentive to explore multilevel marketing (MLM) to supplement their income and maintain their desired modern lifestyle. However, the perception of MLM has in the past been tainted by unscrupulous pyramid and Ponzi schemes which aims at quick profits and are not sustainable. This paper aims to investigate the influence of perception of MLM companies and agent attributes on the willingness to undertake MLM as a career among youth.

The sample of this study comprised 218 students pursuing business and management degrees at a private higher education institution in Klang Valley, Malaysia. Methodologically, this study developed statistically valid and reliable scales for all the constructs of this study namely perception of attributes of MLM companies (general, schemes and service) an agents (general and trust) as well as willingness to undertake MLM as a career option.

The findings indicate that all MLM company and agent attributes have a significant influence on the willingness to undertake MLM as a career option except MLM schemes. General agent attributes displayed a significant negative influence.

MLM companies need to make their schemes more understandable and transparent to solidify the legitimacy and sustainability as the employer of choice.

The paper shows that MLM remains a viable career option for youth and they need to be equipped with adequate training in personal selling, entrepreneurship and soft skills. MLM companies can tap and nurture this pool of young talent to meet their human resource needs for future growth of this industry in Malaysia.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how degree-holding secondary school teachers cope in a recessive economy by embracing hybrid entrepreneurship (HE). Specifically, we investigated how comparison with referent others, underemployment and relative deprivation led to HE.

The study adopted a cross-sectional research design. We used snowball and purposive sampling techniques to recruit 303 bachelor’s degree holders teaching in Nigerian public secondary schools in two states of the federation (Ondo and Ekiti states). We analyzed the data with regression path analysis and controlled for age and gender.

The results of this study showed the following. First, teachers were high in the feeling of pay underemployment and relative deprivation. Second, pay underemployment and relative deprivation directly led to HE. Third, teachers were indirectly high in HE through either pay underemployment or relative deprivation. Finally, underemployment and relative deprivation serially mediate the relationship between referent others and HE.

Overall, the results suggest that teachers’ involvement in HE is necessity-driven to cope with the recessive Nigerian economy. However, future research should focus on a more experimental approach to determine the cause-effect relationship.

This is the first study to investigate how workers embrace HE to cope with the consequences of a recessive economy.

The National Health Interview Survey on Disability, fielded between 1994 and 1997, was one of the most comprehensive and most complex surveys on disability ever conducted. This chapter describes the background of the NHIS-D, its design and contents, its technical characteristics, and initial efforts to disseminate its findings. It provides a basic background on the NHIS-D for readers of this volume, and provides analysts working with the NHIS-D insight into some of the design and development issues that have not been previously described in public documents.

The subject of part‐time work is one which has become increasingly important in industrialised economies where it accounts for a substantial and growing proportion of total employment. It is estimated that in 1970, average annual hours worked per employee amounted to only 60% of those for 1870. Two major factors are attributed to explaining the underlying trend towards a reduction in working time: (a) the increase in the number of voluntary part‐time employees and (b) the decrease in average annual number of days worked per employee (Kok and de Neubourg, 1986). The authors noted that the growth rate of part‐time employment in many countries was greater than the corresponding rate of growth in full‐time employment.